Cuba Rejects New Version on Damage to US Diplomats

The new version that attributes the alleged damage to US diplomats in Havana to microwave emissions was rejected by a top Cuban diplomat quoted today by the newspaper Granma.

Not even that theory about microwave emissions supports the multiplicity and diversity of symptoms shown by the allegedly affected people, according to the Department of State, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, director of the General Department for the United States at Cuba's Foreign Ministry, told Granma.

As time goes by, those arguments lose veracity rapidly... it is impossible to demonstrate what did not happen and the United States knows that, he added.

'They (US authorities) started with the theory about sonic attacks, which did not resist the analyses by the scientific community and the police investigation carried out by the two countries. Later, they resorted for a brief period to the hypothesis of a viral attack, which was dismantled due to a lack of evidence,' Cossio recalled.

Over the past few months, they have spoken about brain contusion 'although there was never a contusion and they have attributed it to four diplomats only,' he pointed out.

Cossio commented that this latest version on the damage to US personnel in Havana due to the alleged use of microwaves, according to The New York Times, lacks either evidence or conclusions based on science to substantiate it.

'What has been proved, what scientists from Cuba, the United States and other countries hold and the Cuban government has been saying since the beginning is that the existence of attacks is false and the US government knows that perfectly well, because it has had many ways to verify it,' the diplomat stressed.

Cossio recalled that US authorities have never allowed access to the medical records of the allegedly affected people, nor have they referred to previous ailments that they might have suffered.

'There has not been either an attack or a deliberate act against any of the US diplomats in Havana and the Department of State knows that,' the top Cuban diplomat repeated.

Using the term 'attack' implies deliberate political manipulation as part of a predetermined agenda, and it damages the two countries, Cossio pointed out. / PL